Page 68 of The Friend Request

The line is quiet for one beat, maybe two. Long enough for me to hear a bird singing somewhere outside, the engine of a car pulling into the space beside me, and the faint thump of my own heart, steady and sure.

‘I love you, too,’ he says. ‘Always have. Always will.’

He hangs up. The phone goes dark in my hand.

I sit in the car park for a long time after that, not doing anything, just holding the phone, looking at the blank screen and feeling the warmth of those last four words sluicing through me. Always have. Always will. He said that to me once before – years ago, in the delivery room, when Olivia was twenty minutes old and I was exhausted and shaking. He was holding my hand and crying, which he never does, and he leaned down, pressed his forehead to mine and said it, and I believed him then.

I believe him now. Not because I deserve to – I know what I’ve done, and I know what it’s cost him – but because Alex doesn’t say things he doesn’t mean. It’s the most infuriating and the most wonderful thing about him.

I go into the Co-op and buy milk, bread, eggs, a tin of soup, a bar of chocolate, and a magazine I probably won’t read. I carry the bags back to the Land Rover, put them on the passenger seat, and drive out of town the way I came. The lanes narrow, the hedgerows rise, and the signal drops bar by bar until there’s nothing left. The hills close around me, and I don’t mind.

He’s coming on Friday. Three more days.

I can do three more days.

I drive back to Jeff’s farmhouse and return the keys, and thank him. He asks if I got what I needed, and I say yes, I think I did. He nods and tells me the forecast says clear skies tomorrow if I fancy a long walk to the cairn.

I walk back over the hill to the cottage with the shopping bags bumping against my legs, the wind in my face, and the sky wider and brighter than it has looked all week.

Three more days, and then home.

Chapter Thirty-One

For the first time since Alex drove away, I feel almost normal.

The fire is lit. The curtains are drawn – pinched shut in the middle with the bulldog clip, no gap, no sliver of dark glass staring back at me. I’ve got the lamp on and the overhead light off, which makes the sitting room feel smaller and warmer, like a den, like somewhere safe. On the table there’s a cup of tea, a packet of crisps, a bar of Dairy Milk I bought in town this afternoon, and a bowl of pasta I made with actual effort – garlic, tinned tomatoes, dried chilli flakes I found in the back of the cupboard. It’s not exactly a Nigella spread, but I ate it at the table with a fork and a glass of water and I didn’t cry into it. At this point, I’m counting that as a win.

I found a DVD player under the television. There’s a shelf of films beside the bookcase – a strange, mismatched collection that must have been left behind by years of different guests. Romantic comedies, a couple of thrillers, a David Attenborough box set, something French with subtitles, and a battered copy of The Holiday that’s been watched so many times the case is cracked. I go with The Holiday because it’s easy and I’ve seen it enough times that I don’t need to concentrate. And because Cameron Diaz crying in a cottage on her own feels uncomfortably relatable right now, and I’d rather lean into it than pretend I’m above it.

The film starts. I tuck my feet under me on the sofa, break off a row of chocolate, and let the opening scenes bombard me. My shoulders come down from where they’ve been living near my ears for the past week, and I breathe. The fire sizzles, and the cottage feels – for the first time – like somewhere I’ve chosen to be rather than somewhere I’ve been put.

It’s only three days till Alex arrives, and I’m wondering if the worst of this is behind me. We’ll sit down together, call the police to file a report, and it’ll be handled, dealt with, sorted, and I can start the long, slow work of earning back my husband’s trust while the professionals deal with the man who tried to destroy it.

Maybe.

I eat another square of chocolate and watch Kate Winslet arrive at Cameron Diaz’s house in Los Angeles and marvel at the size of it. Tomorrow I could borrow the car again and try to call Olivia from town. We could talk about the trainers, the hamster, and whatever else she’s been up to at Alex’s parents’ place. She’ll tell me I’m being clingy, I’ll tell her I’ve missed her, and she’ll say ‘Mum, it’s been like a week’ in that tone she does, as if a week is nothing, and mothers aren’t supposed to fall apart when their daughters aren’t in the next room.

Jeff’s car keys are on the kitchen worktop. He turned up at the cottage this afternoon with a spare set of keys and told me to borrow the car whenever I like – No rush, love, bring them whenever, I barely drive the thing these days, just take it if you need it. I left them by the toaster where I can see them, because knowing the car is parked in his yard and the keys are in my kitchen makes me feel something I haven’t felt since I got here.

An exit. A way out. If something goes wrong, I’m not stuck. I can walk over the hill and get in the car and drive, and that single fact – the existence of a plan B, however rough – has taken the edge off the isolation in a way that five days of walking and deep breathing and talking to teapots never managed.

I’m halfway through the film when the headlights hit the window.

They sweep across the curtains in a wide, slow arc – two beams of white light that travel from left to right across the fabric and throw moving shadows over the ceiling and the far wall. Then they’re gone. The room drops back to firelight and lamplight and the bluish flicker of the television. I sit completely still with a piece of chocolate halfway to my mouth and my heart slamming against my ribs.

A car. On the track outside. Just after nine at night.

I put the chocolate down. I mute the television. The room goes silent except for the fire and the blood rushing in my ears, and I listen.

An engine. Low, idling, close – just outside the yard, maybe on the track, maybe already through the gate. The steady hum of an engine seeps through the stone walls. Nobody comes down this track, especially not at this time of night. It’s a dead end. The cottage is the only thing at the bottom of it, and Jeff is the only person who knows I’m here. But Jeff goes to bed at nine, Jeff doesn’t drive at night, and Jeff wouldn’t pull up outside without knocking.

Who is outside my cottage?

I get off the sofa. My legs feel strange – too light, disconnected from the rest of me – and I move to the window and press myself to the wall beside it and reach for the edge of the curtain. My fingers are shaking. I pinch the fabric and draw it back an inch, just enough to see through.

Darkness. Total, blank, black darkness. The headlights have gone. The engine has stopped. There’s nothing in the yard except the gate, the wall, and the black shape of the hill beyond. I can’t see the track because it curves away to the left and the cottage blocks the angle. Wherever the car is, it’s not where I can see it.

I drop the curtain. My hand goes to my chest, and I press it flat to my sternum as if that might slow my heart down. I stand in the sitting room with the muted television flickering, the fire popping, and my breath coming in short, shallow pulls that I can’t seem to deepen.